The Ghost of You
by crimsonmarie
Summary: Edward Cullen's life was never what one would call normal. His father's a top-class surgeon and his mother's a new age hippie. He's had it when they move from California to Forks, WA. Will he find normalcy or learn to accept things as they are?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Hiiiiii. *waves* I know, I know, I said that I was gonna work on A Lot and Pieces once Fourteen was finished…**

**And to be fair, Fourteen **_**is**_** finished. I'm just attempting the outtakes, which aren't a real part of the story. Therefore, I'm in the clear, right?**

**Okay, yeah, it's coming. I promise. Slowly, but it's getting there.**

**Moving on.**

**I couldn't not write this story. It was yelling at me and I had everything I wanted with it set up and planned out within an hour. The writing may be slow going at times, but it's a little faster than Fourteen and A Lot are coming along, so I'm hoping that this makes up for the whole fail thing I'm in the middle of. I'm aiming to update this story once a week on Tuesday's. That's my goal and I'm hoping that I can stick with it.**

**Thanks to my lovely girls who don't kill me when I'm thinking they want to; Angie, Meg, Shae, Shelley and Tiffany. You girls are amazing and I fucking love all of you.**

**Now, onward!**

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It was official. I was going to be bored out of my freaking mind within ten minutes of being here. The entire time we'd been in Washington State, the only thing I'd seen that seemed remotely interesting in this tiny town was a video store connected to a laundromat. I'd seen about six different guys standing around outside as we drove past and given the state of the town, it seemed like that must've been the hot place to be on a Friday night.

My parents were trying to torture me, I was sure of it. Just because the state-of-the-art hospital had thrown more money at my father than we really knew what to do with, and my mother had found a house that was supposedly haunted, they thought they could just uproot my life and we could move to a completely different state.

More like a completely different universe. This was nothing like California and I already missed all of my friends and the rest of our family. We had landed in the middle of freaking nowhere with no one familiar even remotely close to us. At the beginning of my senior year in high school, no less.

I sighed heavily and rested my chin in my hand as I stared out the window in the backseat of my father's Mercedes. We'd sold my car. My baby was in the hands of some other owner that didn't have the first clue as to how to really take care of it. She'd just gotten her license a month before they bought Victoria – yes, I named my car. Victoria the Volvo – and I'd cringed when she'd backed out of the driveway, nearly running into our mailbox. I guess it was a good thing that I wouldn't be around the state to watch her ruin everything I'd put into it.

That didn't make me feel any better, though.

"There it is!" my mother squealed, clapping her hands together as she bounced up and down in the front seat.

I rolled my eyes and sat forward, looking up at the house that we'd be living in. Well, it wasn't anything like I thought it would be, that's for sure. For someone who'd just had more money than Bill Gates thrown at them to move their entire family out here, this house sure as fuck didn't show it.

It was a modest two-story brick house with a small porch and _maybe_ a two-car driveway. If I got a VW bug, it just might be able to fit in the driveway with the Mercedes. There was a house across the street, one to the left and that was it for the entire street. We were the last house on a dead end street and I was willing to bet money that the other two homes housed a couple of spinsters that bitched at each other over whose turn it was to feed the cat that died six years ago.

"Here? Really?" I asked dryly, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, really!" she exclaimed, turning and laughing at me, gently slapping my shoulder. "Isn't it just perfect?"

"It's grand," I grumbled, sitting back and pushing out of the car once my father had parked it.

"I can't _wait_ to set up my crystals!" my mother continued as she popped out of the car, dancing over to the porch steps before turning to look at us. "We need to get these flowerbeds fixed ASAP, Carlisle. I need to start my herb garden!"

I reached up and slapped my forehead, shaking my head and breathing deeply as I listened to my father's non-committal grunt.

"Yes, dear!" he called back before popping the trunk. "Why don't we work on setting up our things for tonight first?"

"Oh, right, right," she laughed airily, dancing back to us.

Her purple dress moved with her and the tinkling of her bracelets and necklaces accompanied her as she hummed and I ran my hand down my face, looking up at the house and directly into the large window facing us. I saw something flicker there for just a minute – something that looked suspiciously like a face – before it was gone.

I rolled my eyes at myself and shook my head once more before walking to the back of the car and grabbing as many of our bags as I could in one shot.

My mother must be rubbing off on me. Ghosts didn't exist. No matter how many times my mother had claimed to see one, or talk to one, or claim to help one cross over, I knew that there was no such thing as ghosts. I loved my mother, but she was a little nuts when it came to the other-worldly shit she was so damn fond of.

I blame my grandmother. She wasn't much better and she'd bragged time and time again that she'd taught my mother _everything_ she knows.

I wish she hadn't.

"Our stuff is here, right dad?" I asked, grunting slightly as I walked up the porch stairs and waited for him to open the front door.

"Yeah," he grunted back, awkwardly sticking the key in the lock and pushing the door open with his foot.

"Oh my two manly men," my mom giggled as she followed me into the house.

I looked behind me briefly to find that she was carrying one little bag and blinked at her, shaking my head once more before walking into the house behind my father and dropping the bags on the hardwood floor. I wandered into the living room, sighing as I saw all the boxes piled up in the middle. The bigger stuff was pushed out against the walls, our entertainment cabinet torn apart and looking sad without all of my school pictures and mother's knickknacks on the shelves.

"Everything should be in the rooms already," my dad announced, walking up behind me and standing awkwardly at my side. "Yours faces the front."

Ah, so the window was mine. Maybe I could convince him to build a balcony or something so that I'd be able to escape the tiny house if I wanted to.

"Great."

"It won't be that bad here, son. You'll see."

He awkwardly patted my back before turning on his heel and walking out of the room. I rolled my eyes before walking out of the living room and grabbing the bags from the floor that were mine. I could hear my parents in the kitchen, my mother's high-pitched, excited voice telling my father all about what she'd be able to do with the kitchen, and made my way up the stairs. I found the room that belonged to me, comforted only slightly by the fact that my bed, couch, nightstand and desk were already in there. Boxes that had my messy handwriting on the side were piled near what I assumed was the closet and I dropped the bags from my shoulder before walking over to them.

"Edward! Sweetie! Come on down here for a minute!"

I grunted and sighed, looking longingly at the boxes full of my stuff before turning on my heel and walking back down the stairs.

"We're gonna find someplace to eat before we start unpacking," my dad sighed, running a hand through his blonde hair and staring at my mother's back as she continued to dance around the kitchen.

That's what she did when she was excited; she danced. It's like she forgot that the world didn't know there was a constant stream of harps and bells and whatever other musical instruments she adored playing on a loop in her head. I found it interesting when I was a little boy. Now, I just found it slightly embarrassing. Especially when she did it out in public.

"Okay," I said slowly. "Why didn't we do that before we got here?"

"Don't… question things," he sighed, shaking his head and jingling the keys in his hand. "Come on, Esme! It'll be dark soon and we need to get back to set up the lamps!"

"There are these things, dad, called lights." I pointed to the ceiling and looked up, my eyes widening when I saw a smooth surface. "What the hell…?"

"It's an old house, Edward. There aren't many overhead lights."

Well if that wasn't just fucking perfect, I didn't know what was. I sure as hell hoped that we at least had running water and that the toilet in the bathroom I'd spotted briefly wasn't just for show. I was _not_ traipsing through the backyard in the middle of the night when I needed to use the damn bathroom.

"Perfect," I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back against the banister.

"You'll adjust," he grumbled. "You don't have a choice."

"Never do, do I?" I shot back, narrowing my eyes at him.

His head snapped in my direction and we locked eyes for a minute before he looked away and bellowed for my mother.

Classic Carlisle avoidance technique. Call for mom when he doesn't want to answer something.

"Esme!" he yelled, stomping into the kitchen. "Come on!"

I sighed heavily and stood up straight, running my hands through my always unruly dark brown hair. I heard footsteps on the stairs and looked up, my heart beating a little faster than normal when they immediately stopped.

There wasn't anyone there.

I looked at every step carefully before gently bouncing from foot-to-foot, listening carefully to see if maybe my movement had somehow made the sound.

They didn't.

"All right, let's go," my father grumbled, waving an impatient hand at me as he walked back into the foyer.

I gave one more suspicious look to the stairs before walking over to the door and holding it open to let my mother dance out ahead of me. She reached behind her, cupped my cheek and leaned up to kiss my nose.

"My boy," she whispered.

I shot her a tight smile and nodded, turning briefly to lock the door.

She was sitting on the stairs, her chin in her hand and long brown hair cascading over her shoulders. She had big brown eyes and was relatively thin, wearing a dark green sweater and a pair of light blue jeans. She had white socks on her feet and she looked… curious.

"What the…?" I breathed, staring at her. Her eyes widened and she sat up straight, slowly, her hand falling down into her lap. "Who are…?"

"Edward!" my father shouted.

I looked away from the girl and over my shoulder, finding that my parents were standing by their open doors. My mother's head was cocked to the side and my father just looked… enraged.

Well, that really wasn't anything new when he was around me anyway.

I looked back towards the stairs to see that they were empty. I blinked a few times, shaking my head in an attempt to clear it before I closed the door and started back towards the car.

"There was no one else in the house, right?" I asked, pointing over my shoulder as I walked towards them.

"No, Edward, we are the only people that have set foot in this house since the Swan's left three years ago," my father grumbled. "Why?"

"Why'd they move?"

"Their daughter died," my mother answered, shrugging her shoulders as if it were no big thing.

A cold chill ran up my spine and I shook my head, wrapping my arms around my waist and turning to look up at the window into my room.

"Did you see something, sweetie?"

She sounded way too excited.

"No," I mumbled, shaking my head again before walking to my mother's side of the car and opening up the back door. "Just tired."

"Aw, well, we'll get something to eat and then come home to relax a little, all right?"

She cupped my cheek again before turning and falling gracefully into the front seat. My father grunted his agreement before disappearing into the car as well.

"Yeah, fine," I grumbled, sliding into the car and slamming the door closed.

Home. My home was back in California with my friends and the rest of my family. This place would never be home. Nothing my parents did or didn't do would ever be able to change that.

* * *

It was too damn quiet. I was used to noise at night - cars speeding by my window, car alarms going off and dogs barking well into the night.

There was absolutely _nothing_ going on at night in Forks, Washington and it was driving me insane.

I turned over in my bed, staring at the curtains in my window. I'd had enough time to make my bed and find my alarm clock from the pile of boxes in the corner before my father had yelled for me to help out with setting up the lights.

Apparently, plugging a few lamps into the right sockets to make them work with the light switches was just way too much for him to handle on his own. When that was finished, I'd been roped into setting up the entertainment cabinet and helping him hook up the cable so that he could watch his precious CNN before going to bed like he always did. My mother, on the other hand, had gotten all of her precious crystals set up around the house and had then started turning every corner of every room into her little plant shrines as she always did.

I'd hoped that our new house wouldn't resemble as much of a greenhouse as it had before, but alas, I was wrong.

When I was finally released from the foolish things my father couldn't figure out on his own, I'd managed to find my curtains and had spent twenty minutes fighting to get them on the rod. Then, I spent another half an hour trying to hang it up without one end of the curtains coming off. The window was a lot wider than I'd originally thought and the curtains I had hanging there now barely covered the glass.

They'd do for now. Mom had already mentioned something about going into the next town over – because God knows, there wasn't a mall in this tiny-ass town – to get some essentials over the weekend. I'd have to remember to tell her that I needed new curtains.

After the window incident, I'd given up on trying to get anything else done. If it took me that long to get the damn curtains hung up, I didn't want to think about how long it would take me to try hooking up my computer or stereo system. So I'd plugged in my alarm clock, set the time, made my bed and got ready to get into it. My parents were downstairs and I could hear them on the couch, sounding more like teenagers on their third or fourth date as opposed to grown adults with a teenage son right upstairs, when I walked out of my room and into the only bathroom in the entire house.

This was gonna get old quick.

And after lying in bed for the past three hours, the last thing I could actually do was sleep. I huffed and turned on my other side, sitting up slightly to punch my pillow a few times in hopes that it would make me sleep a little better before I collapsed onto it again. I closed my eyes, sighing and bringing my knees up to my chest.

I was almost asleep when I heard a rustling noise coming from the corner of the room where all my boxes were. I opened one eye and looked around, waiting to see if I heard it again. When I didn't, I shook my head, pulled my pillow over my head and attempted sleep once more.

Stupid new house with new sounds that I wasn't familiar with.

It was only when I heard a scoff – a human scoff – that I shot up in bed, my pillow flying to the floor as I stared at the stack of boxes in the corner. My eyes widened when I saw the same girl I'd seen sitting on the staircase earlier standing there with her head stuffed inside one of my boxes.

"Who the fuck are you?" I exclaimed, quickly climbing out of bed and wishing I knew where I'd put my damn baseball bat.

Woman or not, she was in my house, looking through _my things_. She could've been completely insane, for all I knew. There had to be an asylum around here or something. _Of course_ my parents would pick a town with no mall, no nothing, but oh, it had a freaking mental hospital pretty damn close to the house.

She squeaked and turned around quickly, her hands up in the air and a look of pure surprise on her face.

"What?" she asked.

"Why are you asking me what? Who are you?"

I inched towards the door, keeping my eyes on her as she let her hands fall to her sides.

"You _can_ see me."

"Of course I can see you! Answer me!"

"Huh." She placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head at me. "That's weird."

"Who. Are. You?" I asked through my teeth, still inching towards the door.

"Doesn't matter." She waved a hand at me before reaching up and tapping the end of her nose with her pointer finger. "Well, this changes things."

"What are you _talking_ about? Why are you in my house? How did you get here?"

She laughed loudly, throwing her head back and gripping her sides. Well, apparently, I was a fucking riot.

"Oh, honey, you have no idea," she stated, shaking her head when she'd calmed down. "You should go back to sleep."

"You're… what are you doing here? I don't have anything!"

"That is not true." She pointed and took a step towards me. "You have everything."

"What do you want? Take it. You can have it."

_Keep her calm, Edward. You're almost at the door and your parents are right down the hallway. One hysterical, girlie scream and they'll come running. You hope._

She tilted her head at me and crossed her arms over her chest, almost seeming to be contemplating something.

"I'll let you know."

"You'll what?"

"I'll let you know," she repeated, nodding once and grinning at me. "Now, if you'll excuse me…"

She walked around me and opened the door, disappearing into the hallway. I shook my head, my mouth hanging open as I quickly followed her.

Well, tried to follow her. There was no one there. The hallway was completely silent. There were no footsteps on the stairs and as I waited, I didn't hear the front door close. Shaking my head, I made a beeline towards my parent's bedroom and burst in through the door, flicking on the lights. My father grumbled, my mother screeched and I braced my hands on the end of their king-sized sleigh bed.

"There's someone in the house," I said evenly.

"Edward," my dad sighed heavily.

"There's someone here!" I insisted, shaking the bed frame.

"Honey, go look," my mother yawned, placing her hand on my father's shoulder.

Well, I'm glad the fact that someone had managed to break into our house and then fucking disappear seemed to worry them.

My father grumbled as he stood up and slid his feet into his worn-out slippers, grabbing his robe from the end of the bed and glaring at me as he walked out of the room. I stayed with my mother, sitting down on the antique trunk that had been my great-grandmother's and rubbed my hands over my face.

"Who do you think you saw, honey?"

"I don't know. It was a girl," I grumbled, peeking through my fingers at the wooden floorboards.

"Was she nice?"

I blinked and groaned, running my hands up my face and tangling them in my hair. Only my mother would ask if the person in our house, looking through my things and probably aiming to steal something, was nice.

Sometimes, I was positive that I was adopted.

My father came back in then, still glaring at me as he slid the robe from his shoulders and threw it on the end of the bed frame.

"There's no one here, Edward. Go back to bed."

He flicked the lights off and I glared at his retreating form, crossing my arms over my chest.

"I _saw_ someone. I _talked_ to her."

"Honey, do you wanna sleep with us?" my mother asked sleepily, and I saw her raise her arm, taking the blankets with her.

I blinked at her form and shook my head, standing up and waving my hands at the both of them before walking out of the room and back towards my own. I glared at the stack of boxes in the corner and firmly shut the door behind me before I grabbed my pillow from the floor and crawled back into bed.

I wanted to go home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**Here we go… you know what I'm gonna say, don't you? Ahhh-may-zing! I love all of you like I love strawberry shortcake (that I had tonight after dinner, by the way. And guess what? It was amazing.) I've missed you all so much! And while I don't answer most reviews (because I suck at that kind of thing), I do read all of them and appreciate everything you all have to say. Truly, you have no idea.**

**Thanks to my official beta: **_**sixeightshuffle**_**. She's amazing and fixes all my tenses because I don't realize that I fuck them up while I'm writing. And of course, to all of my unofficial betas, who are just as important to this whole process I've got going and whom I love just as much – Angie, Meg, Shae and Shelley. Love you girls!**

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I stared at my reflection as I brushed my teeth the next morning, mechanically rubbing the brush over my teeth and tongue as I tilted my head to the side.

It had to be a dream. I mean, it was vivid and all, but it had to be a dream. The doors had been locked, the windows shut, and, most importantly, I'd never heard my bedroom door open or shut. I overreacted to a dream that felt entirely too real. People just don't up and disappear.

The end.

I spit into the sink before sticking my toothbrush under the running water to wash it off. I dropped it down on the counter next to me – toiletries such as our toothbrush holder and paper cups hadn't been unearthed quite yet – before leaning down and sucking water into my mouth.

I slapped the water off once I spit again into the sink and wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. Walking out of the bathroom, I made it downstairs and into the kitchen where my mother was humming and dancing around in front of the sink. She was wearing her red and black skirt today with a white t-shirt, silver bangles on her wrists that clinked together as she moved, and I'm sure she had on one of those horrendously multi-chained necklaces that went down to her waist. I didn't know how she functioned with something like that.

"Morning," I grumbled, propping myself against the doorway.

"Good morning, sweetheart!" she sang, looking at me over her shoulder and grinning. "Your father told me to take you car shopping today."

I perked up just a little.

"Where is he?"

"He had to go into the hospital this morning for a little bit. To get his office set up and everything squared away, you know."

Ah, so the workaholic had already reared his ugly head. Didn't take him long.

"Right. How are we getting there, Mom?"

We were down to one car. My mother hated driving – only doing so when absolutely necessary – and insisted on not having a car of her own. Between selling Victoria and only having my father's Mercedes – and since he was already at his new home – getting around for the day didn't seem as though it was going to be an easy feat.

"I dropped your father off this morning," she chirped, fluffing one of her plants before dancing over to the wide window facing the front yard. Well, that solved that. "The car is ours for the day. Have to get new cell phones, too, of course."

I nodded, watching as she set the small plant on the windowsill that was already full of others that looked exactly the same. At this point in my life, I _should_ have known the names and purposes of every single freaking plant in the continental United States. Unfortunately, the minute my mother started talking about all the uses and functions of her precious herbs and plants, I tended to tune her out.

"And I have to call the telephone company," she continued, fluttering her hands around her as she moved around to grab yet another plant from a seemingly never-ending box of them. "There's just so much to do today."

"What time do you have to get Dad?"

"He said to stop in when we were finished. I figured that we'd get all the small errands done and then we could see about your car, yeah?"

I sighed inwardly, really not relishing the idea of running errands with my mother like I was ten and she couldn't leave me at home by myself.

"We have to sign you up for school, too."

I groaned aloud and she laughed, her earrings made from recycled… something… tinkling as she shook her head at me. I had a week before I really had to think about anything like that. Did she really have to bring it up _now_?

"One more year, my love. Then we can talk about college."

She stuck the plant under the faucet and turned the water on.

"I'm not doing the doctor thing," I grumbled. She hummed absently at me and I narrowed my eyes at her back. "I'm not!"

"Whatever you want to do is fine with me, sweetheart."

_Yeah, with _you_. Can you make Dad adopt that same thought process?_

"Yeah."

"Go get dressed." She used one hand and shooed me away. "We've got a lot to get done today."

I nodded and sighed heavily, pushing myself off the wall and starting back towards the stairs. I stood off to the side of my bedroom door, poking my head inside and making sure that I was the only one in there.

Dream or not, it had freaked me out. It wasn't often that I ran to my parents' room because of something stupid; I was eighteen and more than capable of handling things on my own.

It had just seemed so damn _real_.

Satisfied that a brunette was not standing in the middle of my room, I walked in and got changed. With my jeans on and a black button up shirt, I slipped my feet into my well-worn sneakers before grabbing my wallet and making my way downstairs. My mother was standing in the middle of the kitchen, her eyes closed, her purse on her shoulder, her arms at her sides and her head thrown back.

Oh, for the love of…

"Mom!"

"Five seconds," she mumbled, not moving.

I closed my eyes and ran my hands through my hair, shaking my head and wondering where in the hell I'd even_ come from_.

She called these her personal time outs. When she wanted to get ready for the day or prepare herself for something, she stood stock still in the middle of a room – any room – and freaking meditated. I was just glad that she didn't hum like I'd seen some of her other friends do while we were back home.

"Okay!" she chirped, grabbing the keys from the counter behind her and handing them to me. "I'm ready!"

"Glad to hear it," I grumbled, turning on my heel and walking towards the door.

I made it out onto the porch and narrowed my eyes at the house across the street. There was a bright red vintage Camaro in the driveway and to be perfectly honest, it made my mouth water a little bit.

Huh. Maybe the spinsters had some relatives that still liked to visit them. Maybe I could charm them out of their car…

We made our way to the Mercedes and I stopped halfway there when I saw the Camaro door open; my eyes focused on the long blonde hair and the trim waist that gracefully lifted itself from the front seat. I licked my lips, watching as the goddess adjusted her shirt, bent down and grabbed her purse from the seat.

She had a _very_ nice fucking ass.

I started walking again when my mother's humming made its way to my ears and I cleared my throat, keeping my eyes on the blonde as I walked over to the driver's side of the car. The blonde turned, flipping her hair over her shoulder and met my gaze. I slowly pulled the car door open, boldly meeting her eyes and watching as a slow smile graced her lips. She wiggled the fingers on her free hand at me before sashaying her way up the walk and disappearing into the house.

Huh. Maybe living on this street wouldn't be so bad after all.

* * *

Two hours later, I pulled into the driveway with my brand new Volvo, singing along to the radio and just generally starting to feel like myself again.

I wasn't going to think about the fifteen minutes where I'd been lost and turned around, heading in the wrong direction and forced to stop at a convenience store for directions.

Yeah, I stopped for directions. That's how fucking _lost_ I really was. Pissed me off, too.

But now, I was back at the house with my new car and a new cell phone that would keep me busy for I don't know how long. The phone company wouldn't be coming out until the next afternoon, so setting up my computer and getting online was out of the question until then.

I'd avoided having to talk to my father, much less see him, and I was more than happy with that. The less I had to be in his presence when he was at work, the better. The last thing I really needed was to have to listen to him lecture me about all the ways being a doctor would make me a better person.

I liked to think that I was a damn good person without aspiring to be a doctor. He liked to remind me that I was the only Cullen son and should aspire to be the best I could be. When I responded by asking him whether he wanted me to become a doctor or join the army, I usually got "the stare" and was ignored for the rest of the day.

Which, honestly, was completely fine with me. At least he stopped bugging me about being a doctor and following in his footsteps for a few hours of the day.

I turned off the car and grabbed the keys, pushing open the door and stepping out. I threw my keys up in the air, grinning as I caught them, and looked across the street.

The blonde was sitting in a lawn chair dressed in a pair of jean shorts and a pink tank top, with a magazine spread out on her lap.

Hell, it wasn't that warm. Not that I was complaining…

"Are you gonna come over and talk to me or just ogle the goods?" she called out.

She didn't raise her head and I raised an eyebrow at her, impressed for reasons I wasn't one hundred percent sure of, then pocketed my keys and phone.

Well then…

I crossed the street, not bothering to look to see if anyone was coming, and stepped onto the lawn, walking over to her. She looked up finally, tossing her hair over her shoulder. She had bright blue eyes and extremely pouty, heart-shaped lips. And from this vantage point, it was easy to see that she had a nice rack to go with the nice ass I'd seen earlier.

"I'm Rosalie Hale. You're Edward Cullen."

"Stalking me already, are you?"

"Your father is the biggest thing to happen to this place since Little Miss Bella got herself killed." She nodded towards the house and I barely managed to hide the shiver that ran down my spine. "Everyone already knows who you are."

"What are you talking…?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter." She waved me off and closed her magazine. "When are you coming to get me?"

"Huh?"

The blonde – _Rosalie_ – seemed a bit insane, further cementing my mental hospital theory.

"For a date. I assume that's the reason you came over here."

This chick was _beyond_ forward. I wasn't sure what to do with it.

"I uh…"

"You'll want to be seen with me before school starts." She licked her lips, bit her bottom lip, and looked me up and down. "I want to be seen with you, too."

"Tomorrow night," I said quickly, nodding. "I'll be here around seven."

"I'll be ready around seven-thirty." She grabbed one side of her magazine and stood up, leaning forward and brushing her lips across my cheek. "See you then, Ed."

I legitimately twitched as she turned on her heel and walked back towards the house. There were very few things in the world that drove me up the wall. Dreaming of very life-like brunettes standing in my bedroom and poking through my things was apparently one of them. Another one was being called any version of Edward; Eddie, Ed… it all drove me fucking crazy.

At least she was hot. I may be able to overlook the annoying name shortening.

I waited until she was inside the house before turning and making my way back across the street. I shook my keys apart, damn near purring as I passed my car, and jogged up the front steps. I stuck the key my mother had given me into the front door and walked in, whistling to myself as I stepped over the threshold.

Then I screamed and almost fell backwards onto the porch. _She _was sitting there, on the same step she'd been sitting on when I first saw her, with a stupid little smirk on her face. She was wearing a muted pink shirt and a pair of dark blue jeans with sneakers this time.

"You are not supposed to be real!" I exclaimed, pointing at her. "I'm awake. I know I'm awake."

"And I'm dead," she said easily, quirking an eyebrow at me. "Did you have a point?"

I blinked at her.

"All right then." She clapped her hands on her thighs and I watched as she stood up, bouncing down the stairs. She wasn't transparent. In fact, she seemed pretty fucking solid to me. "You're apparently the only one that can see me. Your parents are oblivious."

I opened my mouth and shut it again, still blinking rapidly at her.

"Alice says you're supposed to help me."

"I don't want to help you," I blurted out, shaking my head and slowly reaching out to close the front door. "I don't want anything to do with this."

"That apparently wasn't your decision," she chirped, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "You don't really have much of a say in the matter."

"I beg to differ."

"Beg all you want." Then she grinned and my heart skipped a beat. That wasn't right. "You're stuck with me."

"I don't even _know_ you!"

"I'm Bella. You're Edward."

"You are the second person to introduce myself to me today," I grumbled, shaking my head and running a hand through my hair. "Look, I don't know what you want. I don't really care what you want, either. I just want to get through this year without too much of a problem and you being dead and a ghost and… in my house… isn't gonna work for me. So… go."

I made a shooing gesture with my hands and all she did was smirk at me, cross her arms over her chest and sit down on the bottom step of the stairs.

"Have I failed to mention that I _can't_ leave?"

"What are you talking about? Don't ghosts just… _poof_?"

"Can't," she said simply, shrugging her shoulders and leaning her elbows on the step behind her.

"Why?" I demanded, fisting my keys in my hand and glaring at her.

I watched her face darken, her eyes narrow, and everything about her seemed to radiate with something that seemed very close to anger. I jumped when one of the light bulbs in the lamp next to me popped, little white shards of glass landing at my feet. I looked down at the mess and then slowly up at her again, watching as she pursed her lips and closed her eyes.

"I just can't."

"Okay," I said slowly.

"Look." She stood and I backed up, slamming back into the front door and silently cursing at myself. "It's you and you can't change that. You can see me and that makes all the difference. Once you help me, I'll be out of your hair."

"I don't _want_ to help. Can't you just find someone else?"

I hated the way my voice shook.

"Nope. Not an option. It's you. You're stuck. The sooner you accept and deal with it, the sooner we can get on with it."

"I don't have to accept anything. I have to be dreaming. I have to be." I kept my back pressed against the wall as I sidestepped my way into the kitchen and dropped my keys on the table. I warily eyed the doorway, listening carefully for anymore breaking noises. When I didn't hear anything else, I slowly made my way to the refrigerator and pulled the door open. "This shit doesn't happen when you're awake. People don't just talk to ghosts like they're having a normal conversation. This shit doesn't happen in real life."

"No, it doesn't. But it's happening, Edward."

I jumped, slamming the refrigerator door closed and quickly turning on my heel to see her standing in the archway, her arms crossed over her chest as she leaned on the doorjamb.

"I'm sorry about the light," she said quietly, ducking her head and shuffling her feet. "I forget what happens when I start to lose my temper."

"I can't help you."

"You can."

"I don't _want_ to."

"Again, you don't have a choice."

"How did I get chosen, then? I want to speak to someone to fix this."

She looked up at me again, one of her eyebrows quirked as she snorted and shook her head. She pushed herself off from the doorjamb and walked over to me. I pressed my back against the refrigerator and held my breath as she came to a stop in front of me.

"Hold your hand up."

"Why?" I asked, clearing my throat when my voice shook again.

The woman – _ghost_ – could make a fucking light bulb explode within mere feet of where I stood; I did _not_ want her touching me.

"You want to know why you can see me, why you were chosen to help me. This is the only way I know how to show you."

"I don't…"

"I won't hurt you." She smiled softly, reassuringly, and I swallowed hard. "I couldn't even if I tried."

I scoffed and rolled my eyes, watching carefully as she raised her own hand in front of me.

"Why should I trust you?"

"I'm not going anywhere." She shrugged and tilted her head to the side. "You're stuck with me, remember?"

I looked down at her palm and shook my head, sliding away from her and walking back out of the kitchen. I looked down at the shattered light bulb as I passed it on my way to the stairs and spared a glance over my shoulder. She was standing in the doorway, her bottom lip caught in between her teeth and her eyes looking impossibly… sad.

"Rosalie's just using you, by the way," she stated. "She and her boyfriend have been on and off for most of their lives. They're off right now and she's aiming to make him jealous."

"You don't…"

"She was my best friend. I know."

I turned towards the front door when I heard two car doors slam closed.

"Why would you tell me…?"

"Don't get emotionally invested with her. It won't lead anywhere."

I panicked when I heard footsteps on the porch stairs.

"You need to go," I hissed, inching towards the stairs. "They'll see you."

"No, they won't."

"You don't know that!"

"You're paranoid, you know that, right?"

"Would you just _go_?" I asked, exasperated.

The doorknob turned and my father pushed the door open, walking in and raising an eyebrow at me as my mother brushed in by him.

"You all right, son?" he asked slowly, closing the door and setting his briefcase next to the shattered glass. "What the hell happened here?"

"Uhm… it just… exploded. On its own," I mumbled, looking over in the direction of the kitchen. She was leaning up against the doorjamb and my heart leapt up into my throat as my mother started to turn in that direction. "I heard something pop from upstairs and I came down to find this."

"You're a horrible liar, Edward," Bella drawled. "Like, top of the line horrible. I don't even think they have a _name_ for how horrible of a liar you are."

I ground my teeth together, shooting nervous, annoyed glances over in her direction and swallowing hard when my mother walked… through her. My mouth dropped open and I stared at her back, listening as she hummed and slid across the floor of the kitchen. For a woman who had claimed to see ghosts and help them cross over, she was sure as fuck oblivious to the one she just fucking _walked through_.

"Oh, well, that's odd," my father mumbled, shrugging. "Esme, where did we put the broom and dustpan?"

"I have to go," I squeaked, staring at Bella's smug face. "I need… uhm… I think maybe I'll unpack some more."

"You'll have to tell me all about the car," he said absently, waving me off as he started for the kitchen as well.

"Right. Yeah. Sure. It's the same as the other one. Okay."

"All right, sounds good. Have a good time."

As I sprinted up the stairs, I vaguely heard a tinkling, _"I told you so," _follow me before I slammed my bedroom door shut and sat down heavily on my bed.

Tomorrow, I was going to find the library and I was going to find a way to get this chick – _ghost_ – out of my damn house.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

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**Thanks to my beta, **_**sixeightshuffle**_**. She's awesome, you should read her stuff. I love her dearly. Angie, Meg, Shae and Shelley – you girls are just as awesome and I wouldn't be doing any of this without you. I less than three all of you.**

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If anyone was watching me, I was screwed. I looked like a crazy man, huddled up in the corner of the local library that was probably about as big as my living room, with books on witchcraft and exorcisms piled by my feet. To make matters even worse, I was wearing a dark hoodie with the hood up and a pair of dark jeans that I'd unearthed from a random box that morning. If that didn't scream _emo_, then I'm not really sure what did.

It did manage to hide me from most of the prying eyes I'd seen when I walked in at first, though. It didn't matter if they didn't actually know me – hell, that was half the problem. I was new here and the last thing I really needed was to have all these crazy rumors floating around about my interest in the _dark arts_, as the sign where I'd found these books had proudly proclaimed.

Living with a ghost wasn't bad enough, you know. I had to make myself out to be insane while I was at it.

One of the books asked me if I was depressed and needed to exorcise all the "demons" in my life. Another pinpointed, in horrific detail, how they'd been possessed by a ghost and had to have a priest come in and cleanse them. It sounded more like a book version of the _Poltergeist_ movie than a memoir like the cover had claimed it to be. The rest told me I needed a priest, and said that it would be better if I belonged to that Church.

Something about being emotionally tied to them or some such thing.

Well, I wasn't a very religious person to begin with. My form of religion consisted of watching my mother play with her crystals and talk to her plants every damn day – that was enough for me.

Finally, the sixteenth – and last – book had a bit of information that might help. I could ignore her, and if that didn't work, there was some mention of spreading salt around the perimeter of the house. Then there was something about burning sage. My mother had to have sage as one of her plants; she _had_ to. And hopefully, she wouldn't ask questions about why I needed it. Then, if the salt and the sage didn't work, there was a prayer that I needed to say.

It all sounded simple enough.

I unfolded myself from the chair and after finding a piece of scrap paper left on a table and a pen, I wrote down the prayer I'd need to say if all else failed. I placed the books on one of the rolling carts spread throughout the small room, tucked the piece of paper into my hoodie pocket and made sure my hood was still far enough up that no one would see me or recognize me without it. I walked out of the library with my arms crossed over my chest, shooting nervous glances all around me as I booked it down the sidewalk and over to my car.

I made it home in less than five minutes, my eyes snapping over to Rosalie's house to find that her car was gone and the entire house looked like it was locked up tight. She had to have parents, right? I mean, there was a beat up puke-green Chevy sitting off to the side, so someone _had_ to logically be home, right?

I rolled my eyes at myself as I slammed my way out of the car and started towards my front door.

I had a ghost to get rid of and here I was, thinking about whether or not Rosalie had parents. _Of _course_ she has parents, you fucknut. She didn't magically appear out of thin air one day._

Grumbling, I stuck the key in the lock and shoved the door open, jumping when I saw her sitting on the stairs again.

"So, my dear Edward, what did you come up with?" she asked, tilting her head to the side and smirking at me.

I opened my mouth and then closed it again, shaking my head and closing the door behind me. No, I was _not_ going to talk to her. I wasn't even going to ask how she knew what the hell I'd been up to because the book said to ignore her. She'd get bored with my not talking to her or putting up with this foolish charade she had going on here and then she'd just… _poof_ like I'd wanted her to do in the first place.

Problem solved. No more ghostie in my house. Life, complete.

I walked into the kitchen and looked around, wondering if my mother had gotten around to finding the salt and putting it away yet. Shrugging, I started rummaging through cabinets, doing my best to ignore the prickling on the back of my neck that went along with the footsteps I heard behind me.

"Your mother has started planting a garden in the back," she started conversationally. "I think it'll look good and she really wants those flowerbeds out front fixed. You should do that for her."

I bit my tongue, slamming a cabinet door closed with more force than was absolutely necessary, before I moved onto another one.

How hard was it to find fucking _salt_? It was a common damn household item. Granted, our household had never been common, not to mention normal, but that shouldn't have made a difference, right? We had to have fucking salt somewhere.

"It's in the next one."

I blinked at the partially empty cabinet in front of me and slowly turned on my heel to look back at her. She was standing in the middle of the kitchen, about five feet from where I was, with an amused smile on her face.

"Salt, right? Your mother put it in the next one this morning."

"Can you read my mind or something?" I snapped, immediately regretting it.

She'd never go away if I kept talking to her, damn it.

"You wouldn't be the first to try and get rid of me." I watched the sadness flash in her eyes before she closed them and then shrugged, opening her eyes and smiling brightly at me. "Be my guest, Edward, but we both know that I'm not going anywhere."

Oh, no, she was going, damn it. I didn't care what the hell I had to do, but she was _going_ and I didn't give a shit where she went.

"Although, I'd really like to hear what kind of an explanation you'll give your father when he sees salt spread all around the house."

"The outside," I mumbled.

"Oh, that'll never work." I glared at her. "None of it will work, but if you want to pretend to do it right, you'll have to do it around the stairs." She pointed behind her. "And in your room. It'll feel like a beach underneath your bare feet so I hope you're prepared to deal with that."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"The living, breathing man who can actually leave this house is going to start whining to the dead girl who can't go anywhere and just needs a little help from you?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Would you really like me to get started on this?"

My shoulders slumped forward and I felt myself starting to pout.

"Why can't you talk to my mother? She's better at this shit than I am."

"No, she _thinks_ she is, Edward. Your mother is a nice person, but she knows nothing of the _other realm_ she's so fond of trying to explore. She's only going to get herself into trouble if she keeps it up with that Ouija board of hers."

The whole room just got a _lot_ brighter.

"Edward," she warned, placing her hands on her hips and pointing at me. "Don't."

"Ah, I found the loophole, huh?" I asked, slamming the cabinet door closed and starting to walk out of the kitchen. "She's in the back, you say?"

"Edward…"

"I don't have time for this. This is my _life_ you're trying to disrupt here," I stated, walking into the front hallway and grabbing the doorknob.

"I had a life, too!" she exclaimed, and I stopped, staring at the door. "I had a damn good one and it was ripped away from me! I just need some help, Edward!"

She was almost pleading, it sounded like, and my stomach twisted uncomfortably at her tone. She'd been nothing but sarcastic and snarky since she found out that I could see her, and to hear her sounding so fucking… _desperate_ kind of made me feel like an asshole.

"I am _no one_."

"That's not true," she said, her voice heated and right behind me.

I jumped slightly and closed my eyes briefly, sucking in a deep breath before turning around and opening my eyes to face her.

"You don't even know me."

"Hold up your hand."

The broken light bulb fiasco immediately flashed through my mind and I swallowed hard, watching as she held up her right hand between us.

"No," I said quietly, shaking my head and flattening myself against the door.

"Edward, _please_."

"You can make a freaking light bulb explode without even touching it! There's no freaking way I'm going to let you touch any part of me. Fuck knows what else you can do."

"I can't hurt _you_, Edward. Your mother walked through me!" she exclaimed, flinging her arm towards the kitchen doorway. "She didn't even notice!"

"Yeah, well, she can't _see_ you! I can! I'm not testing any theory."

"You are infuriating!" she screeched, stomping her foot.

I raised an eyebrow at her and she crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at me.

"You're not much better! Fuck, can't you just leave me alone?"

"I wish that I could!" she snapped.

"Why can't you?" I yelled, throwing my own arms out to the sides and narrowing my eyes at her.

"If you'd let me touch you, you'd understand!"

"I don't want to explode!"

"You're absolutely… I can't even talk to you!"

"Good! I don't want to talk to you anymore anyway!"

She screeched again and then stomped up the stairs as if throwing a tantrum. The only difference, of course, was when she disappeared at the top of the stairs instead of stomping the rest of the way into a bedroom to slam the door like any other normal, hormonal teenage girl would do.

"Crazy fucking ghost," I grumbled under my breath, stepping away from the door and running a hand through my hair.

"Edward?" my mother asked, pushing through the door.

She had on that horrific hat that could've shielded her from just about anything and her green gardening gloves were full of soil. She was wearing a dark green dress and her bangles were missing from her wrists, which I was more than thankful for. Those things were annoying as fuck.

"Uh, hi."

"Why were you yelling?"

Fuck. Hadn't given that much thought, had I?

"I was, uh… singing," I said nervously, clearing my throat and dropping my hands back to my sides. "Had this song stuck in my head and couldn't get it out."

She tilted her head at me, slowly reaching up to pull her hat off and hold it down at her side.

"You never sing that loudly, honey."

"I just felt like it today."

She dropped the hat on the banister of the stairs and began to pull off her gloves.

"Would you like to tell me what's going on?"

"There's nothing to tell, Mom."

"I'm not so sure that I believe you."

"Mom, I'm fine." I licked my lips and shook my head, looking down at my watch. "I have a date tonight."

I looked up to see complete bewilderment on her face and shrugged innocently, smirking.

"How did that happen?"

"The girl across the street. I'm taking her out tonight."

"Oh!" She brightened and stood up a little straighter, beaming at me and hopefully forgetting that I'd been screaming at nothing as far as she was concerned. "Well, that's very nice, dear. What time?"

"Seven."

I watched as a foreign smirk that caused a chill to run up and down my spine showed up on her face before she nodded and reached out to pat me on the head.

"Very nice, dear," she mumbled again. "I'm going to start dinner for your father."

I nodded and watched as she danced into the kitchen, humming before she disappeared around the corner. I huffed out a deep breath and reached up to run my hands through my hair, shaking my head before slowly starting up the stairs.

I wonder how hard it would be to convince Dad to move somewhere else…

* * *

"We're going to the diner," Rosalie stated as she plopped into my car and straightened out what I thought was supposed to be a skirt.

It looked more like a pair of underwear. Not that I was complaining… Even though it had taken her forty fucking minutes to get ready and I spent the entire time in her living room, being watched like a hawk by her half-deaf grandmother that reeked of moth balls.

"Okay," I mumbled, nodding once as I jammed my keys into the ignition.

"Do you know where it is?" she asked absently, flipping the visor down and pursing her lips at her reflection.

I looked over at her, raising an eyebrow before backing out of the driveway. I didn't just move here a few days ago or anything… Of _course_ I knew where everything was already.

"No."

She snapped the visor back into place and grabbed her seatbelt, pulling it across her lap and pointing ahead of us.

"Go that way." No, really? I thought I'd go the opposite way… on our dead end street. "Then take a right."

I nodded and started towards the end of the street, absently tapping my fingertips against the steering wheel.

"So… you live with your grandmother," I stated, struggling to come up with something to say.

I didn't know anything about this girl, but apparently, the only time that she wanted to start a conversation was when I was staring at her from across the street.

"My parents live in France. I live here for school."

"Why?"

"We all lived here a while ago, but my parents decided that they wanted to move to France a few years ago. So, I spend a month of the summer with them and the rest of my time here." She sighed heavily, leaning her head back against the seat. "I can't wait to graduate and be able to go wherever I want."

"Will you go to France?"

"Hell no." She scoffed and sat up straight, telling me to take a left at the next road. "I want to just travel. Maybe backpack somewhere."

"Are you going to college?"

"I have no desire to go to college." She looked over at me. "I'm done talking about this. Are you a virgin?"

I might've choked on my tongue.

"What?" I wheezed.

"You heard me. Don't be shy, Eddie."

My eye twitched and my hands tightened on the wheel as my breathing returned to normal, and I made sure that my tongue was where it was supposed to be.

"No," I grumbled. "You?"

"Don't you know better than to ask a girl that?"

At this point, five minutes into our date, I was sorely tempted to turn around and take her home. This girl had the ability to drive me even crazier than Bella was currently trying to do.

"But it's okay to ask me that?"

"Well, I need to know. For future reference…"

_"Rosalie's just using you…" "…She's aiming to make him jealous."_

I shook my head, silently cursing Bella for telling me anything about my new hot neighbor-girl that had a special talent for finding that one nerve to drive me crazy within ten seconds.

"Right," I grumbled instead. "Okay."

"What do you wanna do when you graduate?"

"Go back to California."

"Would you be an actor?"

I looked over at her briefly, noting that she looked about as excited as my mother had when she asked me if I'd seen a ghost the first night in our house. I didn't like that look.

"No," I mumbled, shaking my head and turning back to the road.

"Oh." She shifted a little in her seat and then pointed to what was supposed to pass for a diner on the side of the road. "Here it is."

I pulled into the remarkably empty parking lot and turned off the car. I pushed open my door and waited at the front for her, looking up at the slightly crumbling green and brown exterior. When I didn't hear another door close or hear her footsteps, I slowly turned on my heel to find that she was still waiting in the car, her arms crossed over her chest and her head tilted to the side.

Oh, for Christ's sake…

I huffed, pocketed my keys, and walked to her side of the car, pulling open her door.

"Well, it's about time," she sniffed before holding out her hand and apparently waiting for mine.

I rolled my eyes and grabbed her hand, helping her step out and closing the door once she'd moved out of the way. I followed her into the diner, my eyes automatically attached to the way her hips swayed despite the fact that I wanted to turn around and leave her there on her own.

She led me towards a table in the back and stood behind her chair, looking pointedly at me as I pulled out my own seat. Licking my lips, I walked around and pulled her chair out for her, smiling tightly at her as she sat down and crossed her legs. Running a hand through my hair, I stepped back towards my own chair and sat down, watching as she grabbed a menu from the holder on the side.

"Do you still talk to any of your old friends?" she asked absently, her eyes trained on the long counter off to the side.

I eyed the side of her head suspiciously before I grabbed the other menu and flipped it open.

"I haven't, no."

"How come?"

"I just… haven't," I grumbled.

Between trying to get a ghost out of my house and getting my room unpacked, I honestly hadn't given much thought to contacting any of my friends just yet. Honestly, I hadn't realized how much I missed all of them until she brought it up.

"Oh."

I looked up when a shadow crossed the table and my eyes widened a little bit at the huge man standing next to us with an order pad in his hand and an amused smirk on his lips. The corners of his blue eyes were crinkled with something close to laughter and the whole atmosphere in our little corner of the diner shifted to complete awkwardness.

"Hello, Rosie." He nodded towards me, grinning fully. "Hello, Rosie's new attempt to piss me off. What can I get for you?"

I blinked at him and then looked over at Rosalie. Her face was turning red and her lips were pressed into a tight line as her hands gripped the menu so hard that her knuckles were turning white.

"Emmett," she growled. "You know what I want."

"Oh, that I do, sweetheart," he said cheerfully, tapping a pen against his order pad. "How about you? What can I get for you?"

"Uh… a Coke and a chicken sandwich," I managed, shaking my head.

"Great. Be back with all of that soon enough." He looked back at Rosalie and grinned again. "Nice to see you, babe. Hope you enjoyed your romp with your little French boyfriend."

She barely muffled a screech and slammed her menu down on the table, glaring after him as he walked away whistling.

Great. Not only was Bella right, but now I'd have to deal with her. And she'd be all fucking smug about it, too.

* * *

I dropped Rosalie off on her doorstep an hour later, kissing her cheek quickly before turning and walking back to my car. It was absolutely pointless to drop her off at her house and then drive the second and a half it took to get to mine, but she'd insisted that I walk her to her damn door.

She'd spent the rest of the dinner fuming and grumbling about how stupid men were and honestly expected me to enjoy the entire thing? I wasn't sure what planet she'd come from and I sure as fuck wasn't sure what had happened between her and the mountain that had been our waiter at the diner, but I wanted no part in any of it.

Now, I just wanted to get inside the house and go upstairs to text all my friends like I should've done when I first got my damn phone.

I managed to pull in behind my father's Mercedes and jumped out of the car, practically sprinting up to the stairs and into the house. The lights were off and the living room was only lit by candles. My mother was sitting in the middle of the room with her back to me and her head thrown back. Her arms were stretched out in front of her for reasons I couldn't understand and I just shrugged, not wholly concerned with whatever she might've been doing.

I started up the stairs, swinging my keys around my pointer finger and looking up when I heard footsteps at the top of the stairs. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my father peering down at me.

"Is she still down there?"

I nodded and he sighed heavily, shaking his head and grumbling. He threw his hands in the air before turning and walking back into their bedroom, quietly closing the door. I could faintly hear the sounds of the small television and I smirked, shaking my head before I finished climbing the rest of the stairs and pushed through my door.

I heard whimpering and immediately stopped, my keys falling from my hand and crashing loudly against the floor. I quickly reached over and turned on the light, my eyes widening when I saw Bella curled up into a ball by the boxes I still had in the corner of my room. She was see-through and I swear to God, I saw tears on her cheeks. Her arms were wrapped around her waist and she kept flashing – like the lights when they start to go out during a bad thunderstorm.

"Bella?" I whispered.

She just shook her head and turned to rest her forehead on the floor, her legs pulling up tighter against her chest.

"Bella, what's going on?"

I swallowed hard and looked over my shoulder before walking towards her and bending down in front of her.

This was more terrifying than the light bulb incident.

"Your… mother," she gasped, her voice raspy and gravelly. "Stop. Please… stop."

"What are you…? What is she…?"

"The… board. Oh, God," she whispered, turning onto her stomach and pounding one of her fists against the floor.

Even the attempt was weak and I watched with even wider eyes when her whole hand started… fading away.

"Please," she begged, flopping back onto her side and opening her eyes into little slits. "Please, make her… stop."

I stood up and turned, running out of my room and down the stairs.

"Mom!" I yelled, jumping onto the floor before running into the living room. "Mom, what are you doing?"

"Edward, honey, go away," she said quietly, her voice far off. "I'm busy, sweetheart."

I ran a hand through my hair and winced when I heard a loud, pained cry come from upstairs. I watched my mother to see if she'd noticed and swallowed in relief when she didn't move.

"How long have you been at this, Mom? Come on, it's obviously not working," I said, laughing nervously.

The girl – _ghost_ – might've pissed me off more than she did anything else, but I didn't like the way she'd looked. I didn't like that she was begging and transparent and crying and in obvious pain. If my mother was causing all of that and I had the power to stop it, I would damn well try.

My heart was beating heavily against my ribs as I heard another whimper sound from upstairs.

"I thought that maybe I'd gotten something about an hour ago," she sighed, her shoulders slumping in defeat as she took her hands off the pointer. "I guess not."

_An hour ago_? That had to mean that as soon as I'd left the house, she'd…

_Fucking Christ._

"Dad wanted you," I said, dropping my hands to my sides and watching carefully as she started packing away the board. "I'm gonna go… call Jasper."

With that, I ran back up the stairs and stood in the doorway of my now empty room.

"Bella?" I whispered, walking in and closing the door behind me.

I started towards the boxes even though she was obviously not there, and sat down heavily on the edge of my bed with my hands in my lap and my eyes fixed on the spot she'd been in. Something bright and sparkly caught my eye and I was quick to slide from my bed to the floor, picking up the small teardrop diamond. I turned it around in my hand, squeezing it and wincing from the pain as it stabbed into my palm.

Shaking my head, I stood up and walked over to my desk, dropping the diamond into the cup that held a few pens and a pair of scissors. Running a hand through my hair again, I picked my keys up from the floor before toeing off my shoes and grabbing my phone from my pocket.

I'd talk to her tomorrow and apologize for my mother. Everything would be fixed tomorrow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**You guys make me sing. Seriously. You're all ten shades of amazing and I love you all dearly. I'm posting this early – well, technically, it's Tuesday right now, so it's not **_**that**_** early – because I'm going on vacation until next week. I'm bringing my laptop, but wasn't sure if I'd have the time to actually post. So go give some love to **_**sixeightshuffle**_** for being an amazing beta and getting this back to me at the last minute. She's fucking awesome.**

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I sat in my last period English class a week later, tapping the end of my pen annoyingly against the edge of the desk and staring impatiently at the clock above Mrs. Maria's extremely high hair. It was altogether possible that this woman hadn't realized it was now well into the 2000's.

I'd been in classes for all of three days and already, I was counting down the days until graduation. My arrival was still apparently big freaking news because there hadn't been one person in the entire school that hadn't come up to me to introduce themselves. Then they introduced myself to me and I swear to God, if one more person told me what my name was, it was highly possible that I'd start screaming.

I knew my own name. I'd had it for eighteen years of my life. I was pretty sure I had it down pat by now.

Rosalie seemed to think that our date was the shit dreams were made out of – or she was just laying it on extremely thick for the guy she was trying to make jealous – and clung to me in between classes. The guy she was trying to make jealous – Emmett – didn't seem to have a problem with it. In fact, he'd even personally invited me to some back to school bash he would be hosting somewhere in the middle of the woods this weekend.

Because, you know, the entire _town_ wasn't anything but woods to begin with.

Since there wasn't anything else to do in this damn town, I'd agreed to show up and he'd slapped me on the back with a satisfied yell of some sort before ushering me towards the gymnasium. Apparently, everyone else knew my schedule better than I did.

None of that was the reason for my incessant tapping against my desk, though. I hadn't seen Bella since she'd been curled up on the floor of my room, and for as much as she drove me nuts when she was there, it was driving me insane that she hadn't shown up at all since then. She hadn't been doing well the last time I'd seen her and, dead or not, I wanted to make sure that she was all right.

No, it didn't make sense to me, either. Not much about my life had ever really made sense before and this was just the latest.

I'd been watching my mother like a hawk, and thankfully she'd seemed to be preoccupied with her garden and the flowerbeds that my father had finally gotten around to fixing for her at some point during the week. The past three days in school had been pure torture, however, because I couldn't watch her like I'd been able to do before. Not knowing what was going on and if maybe she was still fucking around with it and keeping Bella from being okay was not settling with me.

For wanting her gone from my life a week ago, I was sure as shit worried about what the hell was happening to her now that she _was_ gone.

"…Be sure to read chapters one through five tonight! There will be a test on Friday!" Mrs. Maria called out to us.

I snapped out of my reverie to realize that everyone was packing up and wondered how I'd missed the school bell ringing. Shaking my head, I packed my things away and flung my back pack over my shoulder as I stood up. Rosalie was waiting outside the door for me and I barely contained a huff.

Really, all I wanted to do was go to the house and see if Bella was waiting for me.

My life was just… fucking… fucked up. End of story. I accomplished my mission of getting rid of her and now all I wanted to do was see her again. I needed my head examined.

"Give me a ride home?" Rosalie asked, linking her arm through mine.

"Yeah, sure," I grumbled, shifting my bag higher on my shoulder before walking towards my locker.

I was pretty sure that she'd driven herself to school that morning, but what the hell did I know? I grabbed my things from my locker, barely paying attention as she began to prattle on about her day like I'd asked her about it or something. But then I heard Emmett's loud mouth and shook my head, sighing as I slammed my locker door closed.

This was getting old.

"Edward! Dude! Meet me at my house on Friday night, all right? This way you won't get lost," he said, winking at Rosalie before he disappeared around the corner and out of the school.

Why he thought I knew where he lived was beyond me, but seeing as how he was already out the door and Rosalie was fuming at my side, I simply didn't have the energy to ask him about it. Plus, it was only Wednesday. I had more than enough time to figure shit out.

The ride home was uneventful and quiet aside from the radio stations that Rosalie kept changing. I was too busy thinking about Bella to be annoyed with her like I normally would've been and quickly dropped her off before parking in my own driveway.

Her Camaro was miraculously in the driveway and I shook my head before climbing out of my car and sprinting into the house. I checked the living room and found it thankfully empty, dropping my bag by the stairs and walking towards the windows that faced the back of the house. My mother was sitting in the middle of her barely-there garden, her hands in her lap with her face turned up towards the dismal amount of sunshine we'd gotten that day.

Everyone in school had been enthusiastic about the nice weather we'd been having as of late and I could only assume that it wasn't normal to see the sun on a daily basis. Not altogether concerned about that, I turned on my heel and walked back towards the stairs, staring at the step that Bella usually sat on.

Running a hand through my hair and sighing, I scooped up my bag and trudged my way up the stairs, sluggishly pushing open my bedroom door and freezing. She was levitating above my bed, her legs crossed with her hands in her lap as she looked around my room. Her black hair was spiky and short, and she was wearing this bright purple… _thing_ that was probably visible from the moon. From what I could tell, she was barefoot as well, and unless my mother had already made a new friend that had reached some newfound level of enlightenment, it was safe to assume that I officially had another ghost in my house.

"Edward!" she exclaimed, gracefully falling to the middle of my bed before hopping off and throwing her arms out at her sides. "I've heard a lot about you."

I blinked at her.

"Not much of it has been good, really." She reached up and tapped her chin with her pointer finger. "We have to consider the source, after all. Bella can be quite temperamental when she doesn't get her way the first time."

Yep. Ghostie number two.

"Noticed," I grumbled, giving in to the fact that this was my life now.

Ghosts showing up at all hours and driving me insane was just something that I was going to have to learn to accept, it seemed.

"Oh, good," she beamed, clapping her hands together and bouncing a little on her heels. "I don't have to deal with any of that pesky, _'Yes, I'm dead and you're still seeing me'_ stuff. She was right about that, at least."

"Is there something I can help you with?" I sighed, dropping my bag to the floor and crossing my arms over my chest. "Is Bella all right?"

"She will be. She underestimated your mother." I eyed her and she turned on her heel, walking around the limited space of my bedroom. "She just needs a few more days to recoup."

"What the hell happened?"

"You're gonna want to sit down."

I flopped onto my bed and got comfortable, watching as the as-yet-unnamed ghost waltzed around my room like she owned the damn place.

"I'm Alice," she stated absently, walking over to my dresser and looking at the pictures I'd unearthed a few days ago.

I had called Jasper after the whole fiasco with Bella and he'd told me all the news, parties, and girls that I'd missed since I'd been gone. I'd given him my new address and he'd saved my phone number, and we'd spent about an hour bullshitting. After that, I'd gone on a mad hunt for all the pictures of me and my friends from back home, quickly either tacking them to the wall or setting up the frames on my desk and dresser.

At least that little part felt like home.

"Nice to meet you," I grumbled, propping myself up on my elbow and following her with my eyes as she moved again. "Wanna get on with this?"

"You're as impatient as she is." She finally stopped and stood completely still in the middle of my room, and I finally had the chance to see that her eyes were something close to a gold color. "Bella's death is still unsolved, Edward. In order for her to cross over and for your life to go back to normal, she needs help."

I internally groaned and flopped face first onto my comforter, peeking up at her through my hair.

"Why was it me?"

"You could see her," she shrugged, stating it as if it made all the sense in the world. "That was enough."

"She keeps trying to show me something," I grumbled, picking my head up to look at her fully again.

"You should let her. She won't hurt you. In fact, she's tied to you so strongly that she never could without doing harm to herself."

I blinked at her, slowly shaking my head. "What?"

Alice sighed heavily, her shoulders sagging forward as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"_Trust_ her, Edward. The both of you," she grumbled, throwing her hands in the air before turning on her heel and pacing my room again. "I don't know which one of you is actually worse."

"Will you be getting to the point sometime soon?"

She sighed heavily and placed her hands on her hips, stopping at the end of my bed. I sat up straight and backed away a little, wearily eyeing her. Just because I'd accepted the fact that ghosts were roaming freely around my house didn't mean that they didn't scare me on some level that I'd never admit to anyone. Two words: light and bulb.

"You want your life back to normal and Bella wants to get on with her afterlife. She's got family waiting on the other side for her and they all want to see her pretty badly. She's been in between for three years now and contrary to popular belief, you can't stay here forever."

"Why are you still there?"

"That's my job."

"Ghosts have jobs?"

"Some do, yes. Not the point." She pointed at me before placing her hand back on her hip. "Will you help her or not?"

"I'm not left with much of a choice in the matter, am I?"

"Not really, no."

"Then why does it matter what my answer is?"

"Things run much more smoothly if you're open to it."

"Well, I'm not."

"You're just making this ten times harder for everyone involved."

"Will you tell me what happened a week ago? Why she was so…?" I shivered. "And how does it tie to my mother?"

"Your mother needs a lot more practice in the things that she seems to be so fond of. Most of all, that Ouija board is the absolute _worst_ thing that she could play around with. You never know who you might get to come through that thing!" she huffed, throwing her hands in the air and shaking her head.

"Okay, great, fine, I'll find a way to hide the damn thing." I tilted my head to the side. "Bella."

"For someone who's hell bent on not helping her, you're definitely interested in her."

"When you see a ghost that looks like she's dying… again… and is starting to disappear, it tends to stay with you."

"Mhmm," she mumbled, nodding and smirking at me. "Bella is tied to you in ways that you won't let her explain and I'd spent about an hour in your time holding her back from the portal your mother opened up for her. She was, quite literally, being ripped in half. You were the only way to stop your mother from forcing Bella to cross over against her will and it took her a _lot_ of energy to show herself to you during that. I'm thankful that you showed up when you did because I couldn't have held her back much longer." She sighed heavily. "You are the one to save her, Edward, in more ways than you can possibly understand."

"Bella knew about the board before my mother did all of… that." I shook my hand in the direction of my door. "Which leads me to believe that my mother had used it before. How come nothing happened to Bella then?"

"She just happened to hit the right portal that time."

"I don't…" I shook my head and reached up to run my hands through my hair. "This doesn't make sense."

"If you let her explain," she said softly, and I looked up at her once more, "maybe things will make a bit of a difference."

"What do I have to do?" I sighed.

"Leg work!" she chirped, clapping her hands again.

"What?"

"She can't really tell you what needs to happen because in all honesty, she isn't sure, either. All she knows is that things aren't lined up the way they're supposed to be, but she couldn't do it on her own. All she can really do is maybe try to put things into perspective for you so that _you_ can figure it out."

"I don't have time…"

"You have all the time in the world, Edward. Bella is the one that doesn't. Time goes by much quicker for us than it does for you."

"So what time frame am I looking at here?"

"She has another year."

"Oh, well…"

"In our time." I pursed my lips at her and raised an eyebrow. "In your time, that's about six months."

"I have six months to solve her death?" I deadpanned. "Without any prior knowledge, with just moving in to this house… you know, I didn't ask for this!"

Alice crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her chin out.

"You think that Bella did?"

I was _really_ beginning to hate that statement.

"What about the police? I'm sure that they did something to…"

"Everything led to a dead end about a year and a half ago. Her parents were fueling the investigation for a while, but eventually, they just…"

"Gave up?"

"Accepted it."

"This is… this is bull."

"Think about if it was you, Edward. If you were in Bella's shoes and you needed the help. If you _finally_ found the one person in the entire world that could actually help you, wouldn't you want them to?" I glared at her and she smiled smugly, nodding once. "That's what I thought."

"Think you know it all, don't you?" I grumbled.

"It's my job to know it all."

"Mm. When's she coming back?"

"She'll be out for a few more days, I think. She was pretty torn up and it's gonna take her a while to get her strength back."

"Your time or my time?"

"Both."

I blinked at her and shook my head.

"You two make absolutely no sense. None!"

"We're not supposed to." She cocked her head to the side when the door downstairs slammed shut and winced a little. "Your mother's on a hunt for the Ouija board. Please…"

"On it," I grumbled, sliding off my bed and stretching my arms over my head. "Tell her that I hope she's okay."

"Sure thing!"

I blinked and literally, she was gone. Shaking my head and grumbling that I was surrounded by dead crazy people, I made my way downstairs to find my mother pulling the top off the box for her board.

"Mom," I said quickly, biting the inside of my cheek. "Why don't you show me the garden?"

She looked up at me and grinned, immediately snapping the top back into place before holding her hand out to me.

"I knew you'd come around," she beamed.

I sighed and met her halfway, forcing myself to smile as I grabbed her hand and let her lead me back outside. I eyed the box and mentally tried to figure out a place to hide it where she'd never find the damn thing as she led me down the small path towards her even smaller garden in the corner of our property.

I really hoped this was all worth it.

* * *

"Edward."

My eyes popped open when I heard the raspy voice and I slowly turned on my side, my heart pounding out of my chest when I didn't see anyone there.

_Okay. You're fine. You're fine. This is just… you had to be dreaming. Go back to sleep._

I caught a glimpse of my alarm clock and sighed, untangling one hand from my sheets to rub my face. Three-fifteen in the morning and I was hearing random voices that I'd rather not hear at all.

"Edward."

I jumped and moaned, closing my eyes tightly and shaking my head.

"Please tell me that you're Bella or Alice," I whispered into the darkness of my room.

"It's Bella."

I wanted to curse myself for the way my heart immediately slowed back to its normal pace but only managed to bite my tongue.

"Are you okay?" I asked slowly.

"Can I just… can I just lay here with you? I won't touch you, I promise," she whispered and I jumped when I felt the edge of my bed dip down a little bit. "I just need to lay here with you for a little while."

Odd request, but then again, what about this situation wasn't odd to begin with?

"Yeah, sure," I said quietly, swallowing hard and moving over even closer to the edge of the bed.

I opened my eyes when I felt her climbing onto the other side of my bed and struggled to make out her figure, swallowing hard when I felt her stop moving and didn't see her.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "About my mom."

"It's not your fault," she whispered back. "You didn't know."

"I still feel…"

"Don't, Edward. Just go back to sleep."

"I hid the board."

"Thank you."

I smiled softly when I heard the one in her voice and turned towards where her voice was coming from.

"I had to suffer through an entire lecture about the benefits of growing our own herbs in order to do it, too."

She laughed softly and I curled one of my arms underneath my pillow, stretching the other one over my head.

"I do appreciate it."

"You're welcome. Why are you here tonight, Bella?"

She sighed quietly and I felt her shift a little.

"I needed you," she admitted softly.

I blinked.

"Oh."

"Go to sleep, Edward. You have to go to school soon."

I continued to blink when I saw her starting to actually _flicker_ in front of me. Huh. Interesting.

"I'm starting to see you," I whispered.

"I'll explain it to you when you're ready."

"But I want to know."

"When you're ready, Edward. Get some sleep, okay?"

"Will you be here tomorrow?"

"Maybe."

I continued to watch as she flickered in and out before my eyes started to feel heavy and I finally stopped fighting them.

"I was worried," I whispered sleepily, yawning and bringing my other arm down to my side again.

I felt some sort of electrical current run through me, starting at the top of my head and reverberating down to my toes. It wasn't unpleasant by any means and I hummed in content, burying my cheek even further into my pillow and yawning again.

"Goodnight, Edward," she whispered.

I hummed again in lieu of a response before I fell asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns the characters. I'm borrowing them.**

**I'm going to apologize in advance for not being as enthusiastic as I usually am, but certain things in my world just kinda crashed around me a bit. I love all of you and you're all very fucking amazing. Thank you for your kind words and alerts and favorites.**

**Thanks to **_**sixeightshuffle**_**, for being an awesome beta who's always patient enough to add in the commas where I've left them out. Angie, Meg, Shae, Shelley… all of you girls are amazing and I love you dearly.**

**I want to say that I'll be able to update next week, but I'm not entirely sure with this new development that's just popped up. My head really isn't in the right mind frame to write much of anything, but I'll do my best to try for you guys. I hope you still stick with me if I can't.**

**One more thing; my dearest wifey, Shaelove, has written a crackfic of this story here and I fucking love it. It cracks me up more often than not and you should all go read it (only if you plan on laughing at it as well. There will be no flames! She has my full permission, k?) and let her know how awesome she is. Link: http:/www [dot] fanfiction [dot] net/s/5947030/1/When_Writers_Throw_Characters_Under_The_Bus**

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I found myself in the library the next day during lunch, bypassing Emmett's request to sit with him during the period, and remembered that I'd need to ask him where he lived so that I wouldn't get lost again trying to find his damn house on Friday.

I honestly had no problem with him. He hadn't wanted to string me up by my balls when he saw me with his ex-girlfriend and had seemed as friendly as possible whenever I saw him, so there was absolutely no reason why I shouldn't go and mingle with the townsfolk.

I wasn't against meeting new people and gaining a few new friends while I was here, but I had a ghost in my house and I wanted her gone. At least, I was pretty sure that I wanted her gone, anyway. Seeing her huddled up on the floor of my bedroom had freaked me out, no doubt about it. Wanting to make sure she was all right after that was completely normal, right? Plus, being forced into helping her and wanting to get my life back to normal – as normal as I could possibly have it considering the parents I had – was completely… normal.

Was it wrong to want to be normal in a new town?

I didn't think so.

So here I sat. In front of the ancient machine that I couldn't remember the name of, looking through all the articles that I'd found mentioning anyone named Bella.

She hadn't been hard to find. In a town this small, it had been fairly easy to find the Bella that I wanted.

I couldn't find my way to anyone else's house, but I could sure as hell find Bella. I was choosing not to think about that too much.

Her last name was Swan, she was an overachiever to the nth degree, and her father had been the Priest in this tiny little town. She'd planned on going to Yale when she graduated, and wanted to be a teacher for disabled children. She'd been on the honor roll in middle school and had carried that over to her only year in high school. The pictures that were plastered next to these articles showed a vibrant, beautiful young girl with eyes full of… life.

They were nothing compared to the ghost I'd seen since moving here. The spark that was visible even through the grainy black and white photographs wasn't there any longer, and the brilliant, beautiful smile that was showcased in the photos, I'd never seen.

Granted, I wasn't sure if seeing any of that was even possible anymore. She was a ghost; all of that had to have disappeared when she died, right?

I yawned as I scrolled to the next article, reaching up with my free hand to scratch at the back of my head. I'd slept the best I had since we'd moved here and getting up this morning had been an interesting feat. In fact, I'd almost missed homeroom because having to actually open my eyes and put my feet on the floor was not something I'd been looking forward to.

Bella hadn't been there when I finally managed to get moving, and I did my best not to be disappointed. Then I spent entirely too much time wondering why I was disappointed in the first place.

That was part of the damn reason I was sitting here in the library as opposed to eating lunch. I needed to get this ghost out of my house and out of my life before anything else happened. I didn't need my mother trying to drag her from her dimension into ours and ripping her in half. I also didn't need to be feeling disappointment when I woke up to find that she wasn't sleeping next to me like she had been when I'd fallen asleep the night before.

No.

I leaned forward when the next article showed up on the screen, my eyes widening and my jaw dropping just a little.

_"Local girl stabbed twice, strangled."_

I blinked, shaking my head and swallowing hard as I rested my chin in my hand and started to read. She'd been home alone, her parents out at a fundraiser for the church. Someone – they didn't know who – had broken in to their home. From what the police could piece together, this person wouldn't have known that Bella was still home and she'd probably startled them at first.

I licked my lips nervously, my heart beating fast and my hands shaking a little as I scrolled to the next page.

They'd stabbed her twice in the stomach, and from the defensive wounds they'd found on her hands, had deduced that she'd fought back even after that. She'd been strangled and pushed down the stairs, where she'd ultimately broken her neck on the way down.

No one had any leads and nothing could be found from searching the Swan home. Nothing left behind. There were a few more articles after that, declaring that they had a few leads that only ended up as dead ends when they went to check them out. In short, whoever had killed Bella was still roaming around without a shred of remorse at all.

The bell rang and I jumped, quickly cleaning up everything I'd been using before grabbing my bag and booking it out of the library.

I wasn't able to concentrate on anything in the rest of my classes for the day, merely thinking about how Bella had died and trying to figure out what the hell I needed to do to put her at rest. Or make her move on. Or whatever it is that I needed to do to help her out.

By the time the final bell rang to end the day, I had no idea what I had to do for homework and I still had no idea what I was supposed to do for Bella. If the police didn't have any leads, then what the hell was I supposed to do?

"Edward!"

I looked up from mechanically throwing books I wasn't sure I even needed into my bag to find Emmett running towards me, his bag bouncing on his back as he came to a stop in front of me.

"Hey."

"A few of us are going to the diner to hang out for a while. Did you want to come?" he asked easily, leaning a shoulder against the locker next to mine.

"Uh, yeah, sure, that's… that'd be fine."

"Great. You remember how to get there, right?"

I nodded, closing my locker door and throwing my bag over my shoulder.

"Yeah. I'm just gonna stop at home really quickly to tell my mom."

"No prob, dude. We're all doing the same. Parents." He rolled his eyes and I laughed, nodding. "Meet you there in twenty?"

"It's a plan."

"That it is, my friend. See you then."

He turned and jogged off, meeting up with who I thought might've been Eric Yorkie. I walked out of the school, shaking my head at myself and sighing.

I should've known that kid's name. I should've known where Emmett lived by now. I shouldn't have spent my lunch period in the library, researching a dead girl and trying to find a way to help her. I was eighteen years old, in my senior year of high school in a new place, and instead of making new friends and living it up like any normal teenager should be, I was spending all my free time with a fucking _ghost _and all the bullshit that came along with her.

Naturally, I got pissed at the whole damn situation.

I slammed my way into my car and dug my keys out of my bag before shoving it in the backseat, harshly shoving the right key into the ignition and gunning it out of the parking lot. I made it to the house in record time, pushing my way out of the car and sprinting up the porch steps. Of course Bella was sitting on the stairs, her chin in her hand and a small, welcoming, almost happy smile on her lips when she saw me.

I could only manage to scowl at her.

"Hello, sweetheart!" my mother chimed from the kitchen. "How was your day?"

I continued to glare at Bella, trying not to feel like an ass when she shifted uncomfortably on her step, the smile falling from her face as she began to chew on her lip.

"Fine!" I called back, still watching Bella fidget. "I'm going to meet some friends at the diner, okay?"

"What's wrong, Edward?" Bella asked quietly, clasping her hands together and resting them on her knees.

"What time will you be home?"

I looked away from Bella when I heard my mother's voice closer, looking at her to find that she was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a towel between her hands.

"I don't know," I said, shrugging and crossing my arms over my chest. "We're just gonna hang out, I guess."

"All right," she smiled, walking over to me and kissing my cheek. "Be careful and be home in enough time to finish your homework, please?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Do you have enough money?"

"Yeah."

"Have fun, honey."

With that, she turned on her heel and went back to the kitchen, humming under her breath as she flapped the towel at her side. I shook my head and looked back at the stairs to find Bella still sitting there, her hands twisting around each other nervously.

"I'm not doing this," I whispered, looking back towards the kitchen quickly. "I'm not helping you with anything."

"Edward, please…"

"I should be out with people I might consider _friends_ at some point instead of sitting in the library and looking _you_ up to figure out what the hell happened. I have better things to do with my time."

"Please, I'm running…"

"Find someone else," I spat, turning around and walking back out of the house.

I looked across the street to see that Rosalie's car was in her driveway, but thankfully she wasn't anywhere near it. The last thing that I wanted to do was deal with _her_ bullshit too. One crazy woman – and in my mind, it didn't matter if she was dead or alive at this point – was enough to fill my quota for the day.

I got back into my car and started it, pulling out and speeding towards the diner. I would be early, but I didn't really give a shit. I needed to get away from the house and the ghost inside of it. Too much was going on at once and I didn't like it. I hadn't even gotten a chance to get used to being in a new place before I was forced into this ghost hunting/problem solving bit and I just wanted a minute to myself. I wanted to be a regular, _normal_ eighteen year-old kid for just _once_ in my life.

I parked in the almost empty lot at the diner and turned the car off, leaning back in my seat and running my hands through my hair.

A few minutes and a lot of deep breaths later, I nearly had a heart attack when someone knocked on my window. I opened my eyes to find Emmett standing there, grinning at me. I huffed out a breath before I grabbed my keys and opened the door, stepping out and looking up at him.

Fuck, he was a tall bastard.

"Hey."

"Hey. Sorry about that." He shrugged. "Had to get your attention somehow."

I nodded, looking around.

"Where's everyone else?"

"They bailed," he grumbled. "The cheerleaders were practicing in the gym after school and they all opted to stay there and watch."

"You didn't want to?"

And why in the hell had no one told me about this?

"I'm a one-woman man, my friend." He slung an arm over my shoulder and started leading me towards the entrance. "Rosie's all the woman I need."

I blinked, shaking my head.

"I thought…?"

"Oh, we'll get back together. We always do," he said confidently as he pushed through the glass door. "Hey, Tyler!"

"Hey, man!"

Who I safely assumed was the cook waved at him through an open window in the wall, tapping a greasy spatula against the chef hat he wore and leaving a mark on the top of it.

Emmett led me towards a booth in the back, finally lifting his arm from my shoulders before sliding into one side and leaving me to do the same.

"Why are you so confident that you'll get back together?"

"This is what we do." He grinned and leaned back, resting his hands behind his head. "It used to be easier when Bells was around to play in between us, but hey." A shadow passed over his face and he shrugged, dropping his arms to the table top. "We make do."

Oh, great. He knew Bella, too. _Perfect_.

"Ah," I mumbled, nodding and reaching to pick at my hair. I knew what the next logical question should be and fuck me if I wanted to voice it. "Bells?"

Naturally, I'm a fucking idiot.

"She was like my little sister. Even though she was a few months older than me." A sad and wistful smile graced his lips as he looked down at his hands, tapping his thumbs against the table. "Her and Rosie were my two best friends growing up. We were stuck to each other, I never went anywhere without either of them."

"What happened?" I asked through my teeth, internally cursing at myself.

"Three years ago, she died," he said quietly, shaking his head. "Her parents went to a spaghetti dinner at the church and she stayed home because she wasn't feeling well. Someone broke in and, well…" He sucked in a deep breath and braced his hands on the edge of the table, leaning back on his seat. "She didn't… yeah."

I bit the inside of my cheek, watching as he licked his lips and looked over towards the long counter.

"Sorry," I grumbled, fidgeting in my seat.

He huffed out a chuckle and shrugged his shoulders.

"She kept me out of trouble, you know?" He smirked. "She was the rational side of our triangle; Rosie's the hot-headed one and I'm the pain in the ass that barely thinks before he does something stupid. She balanced us out. She knew just how to calm Rosie down and she knew just what to say to keep me out of jail. When Rosie and I would fight, she'd knock sense into our heads and tell us to get over whatever it was that was bothering us because we were those gooey high school sweethearts everyone else always aimed to be. We still know that, but sometimes it takes us a little longer to realize it."

"You said something about her with some French guy?" I asked, immediately jumping at the chance to change the subject.

Now that he'd officially made me feel like the biggest ass in the world for not helping who had seemed like the nicest person in the world, I needed a change of subject. And maybe a new place to live. I couldn't feel guilty if I didn't live there anymore, right? I was eighteen and more than able to move out on my own. Just because I was still in high school and didn't have a job didn't mean a damn thing. I was a legal adult.

I was also losing my mind. More afraid of looking into a ghost's eyes and seeing something that could possibly be extremely close to betrayal than the fact that she was an actual _ghost_. Aside from the whole pesky exploding light bulb thing that happened…

"Oh, she does that. She aims to get me jealous when she's away, then gets pissed off when _I_ get pissed off about the whole situation. I've got the time to really think about it while she's away and she's got the time to stew about it. She comes home and we do this for a while before I finally call her and shit goes back to normal."

I stared at him as he looked back at me and he laughed.

"Doesn't that get old?"

"Clearly you've never had make up sex."

"Uhm."

He relaxed back into his side of the booth and folded his hands on the back of his head again.

"Tell me about California, dude," he started. "I've never been there and I'd love to take Rosie there sometime."

As soon as I opened my mouth, we heard a female voice, accompanied by a very loud _bang_ and a barely contained curse.

"I'll be right with you, Em!"

"No problem, Jess!" he yelled back, his lips twitching.

I turned in my seat to see a blonde girl crouching on the floor, picking up scattered papers, and noticed that a thankfully empty serving tray was turned upside down next to her.

"That's Jess Stanley," Emmett said quietly, leaning forward when I faced him again. "She's a nice girl, albeit a little bit of a dipshit and clumsy as all fuck. She goes to school with us."

I nodded, vaguely remembering seeing her in the hallways at some point. She was nice to look at; trim little waist, perky boobs, and nice long legs. Not that I'd been able to pay much attention to her as a whole, thanks to the ghost that lived in my house and took up all my free time, but from what I had managed to see of her, she seemed nice.

"Tell me about Cali, dude," he said again.

I started telling him about my hometown and all the ways that it was different from Forks in between bites of food once Jess had finally picked everything up from the floor and made it over to us without falling on her face. She was nervous and slightly twitchy when we were face-to-face, but other than that, she seemed like a cool girl. I'd been informed that she would be at the party on Friday night with her long time boyfriend, Mike Newton.

He was apparently an ass and no one could understand why a nice, fairly good-looking girl was with his dumb ass. I had no opinion because I honestly couldn't remember anyone named Mike Newton even though he was the captain of the basketball team and all around loud mouth. That shouldn't have surprised me, of course, but it did just annoy me further.

Which then led me to feeling more guilty about everything than I had before Emmett had opened his mouth.

Fuck, I was exhausted.

By the time I said goodbye to Emmett and finally got directions to his house, I was ready to crawl into bed and sleep for the rest of the night. Fuck my homework and everything else that needed to be done before that happened.

I saw Rosalie leaning against the back of her car before I pulled into my own driveway and groaned out loud.

Just one more thing that I didn't need to deal with today.

Groaning and turning off my car, I grabbed my back pack, pushed open the door and hoisted myself out, turning to see that she was already on her way over. Her eyes were staring at my bedroom window as she wrapped her arms around herself, her black sweater swimming around her as she came to a stop in front of me.

"You okay?" I asked when I finally saw that she didn't look nearly as… Rose-ish as she normally did.

Her eyes were sad when she finally met mine, I didn't think she was wearing any make up at all and she just seemed to radiate this emptiness that I didn't think she was even capable of. Only knowing her for a little over a week or not, it was blatantly obvious that this was not her usual demeanor.

"She was my best friend."

Ah, good, _more_ about Bella. Because God knows I didn't feel like enough of a scumbag as it was.

"Okay," I said slowly, nodding and reaching up to scratch the back of my neck awkwardly.

And yet, upon our first meeting, she'd acted as though Bella's death was no big deal. I was so confused.

"I've spent the past three years trying to live without her and it's hard. Sometimes it's just easier to be mad at her, even though she doesn't deserve it." She laughed humorlessly and snubbed her toe into the gravel my driveway consisted of. "She knew me inside and out, and sometimes it's just hard to get out of bed. Emmett helps." She nodded and looked up at my bedroom window again. "He misses her just as much."

I think I must've missed the _Bella Day_ memo this morning when I finally rolled out of bed.

"And I know you don't care about any of this." She chuckled quietly and shook her head, chewing on her bottom lip as she looked back at me. "But Emmett never showed up tonight like he always does on her birthday and I just needed someone to talk to."

Whoa. Wait. Her _birthday_?

Yeah, that made everything ten times worse.

"It's fine," I managed, nodding and swallowing hard. "Uh, Emmett was with me at the diner. I didn't know…"

"You wouldn't have." She smiled humorlessly and stepped up to me, gently kissing my cheek. "Thanks for listening, Edward. I'll see you tomorrow."

Before she could take a step away from me, we both looked up when we heard the rumble of an engine. Emmett's jeep slowed to a stop in front of her driveway and she shot a sad smile at me before bounding across the road and over to the driver's side door. He slid down from the seat, slammed the door and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, his nose buried in her hair as she sank into him. He lifted a few fingers from her back in my direction and I waved back, nodding once before turning on my heel and facing the house.

Fucking. Hell.

Taking a deep breath and steeling myself for one pissed off ghost – and maybe a few more broken light bulbs – I walked up the porch steps and into the house. I found my parents in the living room, laughing and talking like they were just getting to know each other. I said my pleasantries, and eyed the stairs before slowly making my way up them and into my room.

She was sitting on my couch, her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes focused on the wall in front of her. She wasn't moving, not even blinking, and I took one slow step into the room, swallowing hard as I kept my eyes on her.

"Hi," I said quietly.

She still didn't move or say anything.

"I, uh…"

I struggled to find something to say and when that didn't work, I shook my head and dropped my school bag onto the middle of my bed. Mentally exhausted or not, I still had homework that needed to get done. I may be forfeiting meeting new people because of the silent ghost sitting on my couch at the moment, but if my grades slipped, my father would murder me. Then we'd both be screwed because if I wasn't around to help Bella move on, there was no hope for either of us.

I'd just gotten my Government book opened with the worksheet we were told to finish for tomorrow when she finally spoke.

"Alice won't let me leave."

I looked up at her from my spot in the middle of my bed, my pen poised over the paper.

"I planned on not being here when you got back." She shook her hands out and a shower of diamonds fell to the floor. "Alice wasn't having it."

I peered over the edge of the bed, looking down at the diamonds as they littered my floor, my eyes widening as they started to disappear.

"I'm tired of pushing," she said quietly and I looked up again when her voice cracked. "I'm tired of trying to make you help me when nothing is going to make you change your mind. I don't know what will happen to me when my time's up, but I'm tired of pushing." She shook her head and looked down at her lap, turning her hands over and picking at her fingernails. "As soon as Alice accepts that you're not going to give in, I'm hoping that she'll let me go. Until then, I'm stuck here. I won't say anything more and I won't bother you." She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on them and looking down at the floor. "I just wanted to explain."

"What are those from?" I asked, watching as the last diamond disappeared.

She didn't say anything and I looked up at her. She had her lips pressed into a tight line and her eyes appeared to be focused on the bottom of my bed frame.

"I have one from before… when my mother was using the board. What are they, Bella?"

She shook her head fiercely.

"I didn't know it was your birthday."

Her eyes snapped to mine and I swallowed hard, nervously tapping the end of my pen against my textbook. Now that I was talking, I apparently wasn't going to stop.

"Emmett and Rose… they really miss you."

She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath, her arms tightening around her legs.

"I guess with me living in your house, it makes them think that they can talk to me about you, you know?" I fidgeted on my bed, dropping the pen and watching her carefully. "It's hard not telling them that I can see you."

"Not like you want to," she scoffed, burying her face in her knees.

I licked my lips and stared at the top of her head, the guilt I'd felt at the diner only growing in intensity the longer she sat there. She looked like she was curling into herself, like she'd given up any and all hope of anything. And I guess it _was_ something like that because she'd already told me that she was done pushing me.

"Did you know who it was?" I asked softly, slowly moving towards the end of the bed closest to her. "Did you know who killed you?"

"He was wearing a ski-mask," she whispered, turning her head to the side.

"Are you sure it was a man?"

I had an unhealthy, unnatural urge to reach out and touch her hair. Just place my hand on the back of her head to let her know that it was okay, which really made no damn sense to me because I'd been avoiding touching her since she'd blown up the light bulb. Sitting here, watching on as she kept herself closed off in a way that she'd never shown me before made me want to… comfort her.

"He was tall and his shoulders were very broad. He was so strong and…"

She buried her face back in her knees and the lights in my room flickered.

"Okay," I said quickly, backing away from her.

Huh. I hadn't realized that I'd been leaning in to her.

"Edward?"

I jumped, looking over at my doorway when I heard my mother's voice on the stairs. I looked back at Bella to see that her chin was propped back on her knees.

"Yeah?"

"Your father and I are going to have some cheesecake. Come downstairs and join us, sweetheart."

I kept my eyes on Bella as I slid off my bed and stood at the edge of it.

"Will you be here when I get back?"

"I can't go anywhere, Edward. Alice said…"

"I'll help you," I said quickly, swallowing hard. She stared at me, blinking slowly. "I'll… you deserve help."

I watched a tear trail down her cheek, dripping off the side of her face and turning into a small diamond as it hit the couch cushion.

Huh.

"Thank you," she whispered.

I reached up and scratched at the back of my neck, nodding before turning on my heel and starting towards my bedroom door. I turned to look back at her once I was standing outside of my room to see that she was gone and the light was glinting off the diamond on the couch.


End file.
